


Can I Steal Your Grace?

by medusaegis



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: I'll add more tags when (if) i ever go further into this, Jewish Comics Day, Summer Camp AU, they're all jewish and wanda's really gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 17:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7063594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medusaegis/pseuds/medusaegis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanda and Pietro attend a Jewish summer camp, and they have to hide their powers while they're at it. It's not so hard for Wanda, but teenage romance, intense color wars, and hours-long trips down the river kind of drive a hard bargain for giving up her power for the summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can I Steal Your Grace?

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Wanda and Pietro arrive at Machane Yehudi at ten o’clock on Monday morning. It’s the middle of July so the weather is sweltering, but the little camp nestled into the valley is much cooler than their home in the city. She can already feel her brother’s joy at all the open space they have to roam around; all the trees and open sky that is uninterrupted by skyscrapers and billboards. For a moment, Wanda allows herself to hope that this summer might be better than the last, that they’ll actually make friends, rather than scaring off every kid who tries to ask their names. She spies the one-eyed camp director, and her hope disappears. He looks like a man who -pardon her French- takes absolutely no shit from anyone. 

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath and prays to the god that she doesn’t quite believe in to please, bevakasha, pozhaluysta, don’t let them get kicked out of a summer program for the fourth year in a row. 

Pietro is talking to the camp director when Wanda opens her eyes again, feeling like her prayer has somehow been heard. The man is big, black -Wanda has never seen a black Jewish person before- and smiling nicely. It’s kind of creepy, as she had thought his was the type of face to be in a perpetual frown, but he’s grinning and laughing with Pietro. When her brother turns around to introduce her, the director gives her the most genuine smile that her eyes hurt to look at it. 

“I’m Nick Fury,” he says, holding his hand out for her to shake. “I hope you like it here at camp.” 

Wanda gives him her hand, letting it go limp in his grip as he gives it a firm jerk and then releases it. 

“Thank you, sir,” she replies in her accented English. “We are much looking forward to it.” 

Her English is terrible, she knows. They only moved to America five years before, when they were eleven, and their English lessons in Russia had been subpar. This is another reason why Wanda hopes this summer camp will be better than all the others; it has a program specifically for Jewish children of Russian descent, and they’ll be able to speak Russian the entire time. 

Camp Director Nick Fury claps his hands together and smiles. “Well that’s good!” He booms. “Otherwise you would have gotten here two hours early for no reason!” 

Wanda smiles nervously, and Pietro laughs. It’s a laugh she knows is fake, but most others do not. Fury makes his leave, rambling about parking spaces, welcome tables, and name tags as he goes. 

Pietro and Wanda smile at his retreating back until it’s out of sight among the cabins. She can tell when her brother stops smiling, or rather, when he starts grinning maliciously. 

“What is it?” She turns to him, speaking in their native tongue. 

His grin widens, and his eyes are excited. “Wanna see if I can run on water?” 

Wanda rolls her eyes, but she’s only fifteen and really, it’s pretty cool that her brother can run really fast, and it’d be even cooler if he could do it on the surface of a moving river. She swallows her rebuke and grins back at him. 

They slip behind the mess hall -she remembers one of the counselors calling it the chadar ochel- glancing furtively around to make sure that no one is watching. The river is splashing just a few hundred feet away from them. This time Pietro lets out a full blown whoop and races toward the water as Wanda watches him with delight. The only marks of his passing are ripples on the surface where his feet have touched. They are so small and quiet that it’s more like Pietro is floating over the river. Far above him, a white-headed eagle soars in the same direction that he is running. Pietro looks up at it and laughs. The bird’s answering cry echoes in the valley, and Wanda can imagine that it is laughing with them, watching Pietro speed around on top of the water. 

Maybe this camp won’t be so bad after all, Wanda thinks, not if they have the freedom for this. 

~

They spend three hours doing nothing. Other campers start to arrive with their parents around noon, and Wanda can hear conversations in Russian, English, and Hebrew. There are even a few Yiddish interjections thrown into conversation. They haven’t met anyone beside Director Fury, but she already feels comfortable in this environment. There are not so many Jewish people in Europe, let alone in Russia, and it is hard to feel like she belongs when there are so few people like her.

Everyone in this summer camp is Jewish. She and Pietro won’t have to worry about saying prayers in the morning, before meals, or on Friday and Saturday evening because everyone else will be doing it too. It is such a relief to finally not have to explain her religion to people who don’t understand it. Everyone here understands, in any of the three languages, they understand. 

At one o’clock, a huge group of campers arrives from the city on a huge bus with wide, shiny windows. They all seem to be laughing and having fun even though they’ve been travelling for hours. Wanda recognizes boy genius, Tony Stark, in the group and does a double take. She doesn’t particularly care about celebrities, but it’s a pleasant surprise to her that the Stark family is Jewish. 

The bus group starts to split up into smaller factions, some joining their friends who have already arrived and settled in. The Stark boy peels away from the group with a redheaded girl and two boys following behind him. One of the boys is black, which is slightly less surprising because Wanda realizes that there’s a lot more color in America than she is used to. The other boy is the skinniest kid she has ever seen, but he has a pair of boxing gloves slung over one shoulder and a huge grin on his face. 

“I like him,” Pietro says, coming up behind Wanda. She turns to look at him. 

“You like who?” 

Pietro points in the direction of Stark’s group. The four of them have joined up with three other boys, and there are two girls and another boy approaching from the second bus of airport arrivals. 

“The small boy next to Stark,” Pietro specifies. “He looks like a good one.” 

Wanda shrugs. “Do you think he is Mizrahi?” she asks, referring to his ancestors’ country of origin. Mizrahi are easterners, like herself and Pietro, and all the other Russian campers. 

This time Pietro shrugs. “I know Stark is not Mizrahi,” he says. “Why would the others be?” 

Wanda snorts and crosses her arms. How typical of her brother to say such a thing. 

“You did not even know he was Jewish before you saw him here, just like me.” 

“Yes, and?” Pietro raises an eyebrow. 

“You know no more than I do if Stark is Mizrahi or not.” 

Pietro doesn’t carry the conversation farther than that. They both know Wanda is right. 

“Do you want me to knock Stark’s hat off?” He asks. 

“Why would I want you to knock his hat off?” 

“He wouldn’t even know I did it. He’d think it was the wind.” Pietro is grinning. He wants her to say yes. 

“You only want me to say yes so you can have an excuse to do it.” 

Her brother’s grin widens, and in less than a second, he disappears. In the field below there is a shout as the Stark boy’s hat goes flying off his head towards the river. The skinny boy and the red-haired girl go racing after it. Pietro appears at Wanda’s side again, looking smug and satisfied. 

“Do you feel better now?” 

“Yes. I do.” 

~

 

They are called to lunch at two-thirty-five in the afternoon. All the Mizrahi campers go to another mess hall on the other side of camp, which is closer to all the bunks they’ll be staying at. Surprisingly, Stark’s redhead friend is Mizrahi, but she’s two years older than Wanda and Pietro, so she spends all her time laughing with the counselors and the oldest campers. 

It’s funny to Wanda to hear all the campers speaking Russian. They’re almost all fluent, which is helpful because her own English is so bad. Most of the Mizrahi campers have American accents to their otherwise flawless Russian. The only other one who sounds like she could be native is the red-haired girl. That’s not to say that the others aren’t Russian, but Wanda knows outdated slang when she hears it, and the redhead is one of the few whose slang is quite modern. 

Another of Stark’s friends strolls through the doors of the mess hall halfway through dinner. He bends over at the staff table and chats with the redhead for a few minutes. Pietro is at Wanda’s side, but he’s too busy shoving his face with the unlimited grilled cheese sandwiches for her to bother with talking to him. She watches the boy as he ends his conversation with the girl and stands up, looking around the mess hall. His gaze alights on Wanda and Pietro, sitting alone at their table, and he makes his way over. 

“Hi!” He says in terribly accented Russian. “I’m James, who are you?” 

Wanda would almost feel affronted if he didn’t sound so cheerful and genuinely interested. She elbows Pietro in the rib and answers for the both of them. 

“My name is Wanda, and this is my brother Pietro. We are new here.” 

James smiles and waves at them, which is funny because he’s standing three feet in front of them. He doesn’t move after that, and it’s kind of awkward, like he’s expecting something. Wanda isn’t sure what until Pietro clears his throat. 

“Would you like to sit down with us?” 

James’ smile widens, and he nods enthusiastically. “Thanks! Yeah, I like to get to know everyone in camp. I’m not Russian, but I’ve been best friends with Nat forever.” He jerks his thumb back at the redhead. “She’s the real reason I come to camp. She started to teach me Russian like four years ago, it’s a beautiful language.” 

James leans forward on the tabletop, holding his left wrist with his other hand. Wanda only glances at it, until she realizes that his entire left arm has an unnatural sheen to it. It takes another two seconds of indiscreet staring before she understands that she’s looking at a prosthetic. James follows her gaze and frowns slightly. 

“Accident when I was twelve,” he explains. 

“I’m sorry.” she says softly. She can’t imagine losing an entire limb. It must be terrible. James laughs sadly. 

“Yeah, me too,” he says. “But it’s fine. I’m over it. I can do stuff just as well with one arm as I could when I had two, and I’ve got Steve to fight people for me when I need it.” 

“You mean your skinny blond friend?” Pietro finally speaks up, his plate of grilled cheese sandwiches is empty. 

James looks surprised. Wanda has noticed that the skinny boy is not Mizrahi, James is probably wondering how they picked him out from the hundreds of other campers. 

“Yeah, that’s him,” James nods. “He may be small, but he can throw a mean punch when he wants to.” 

Pietro laughs. “And he does not always want to, huh?” 

“You’re very perceptive,” James says, looking a bit weirdly at her brother. “Steve doesn’t believe in fighting except for sport. He’s not very good at sticking up for himself.” 

Wanda doesn’t really believe that’s true, but she doesn’t get the opportunity to say so. Nat, the redheaded girl that she has been staring at all day, comes up behind James, putting her hands on his shoulder and her head on his. 

“What’s up loser?” She says in English. It’s curious how James smiles without turning to look at his friend. Wanda and Pietro watch the two of them warily. 

“I’m just talking to my new friends here,” James replies in Russian. He gestures to each of them with an arm. “Natasha, meet Wanda and Pietro. Wanda and Pietro, meet the iciest bitch in the universe.” 

Natasha reaches out a hand to Wanda, not reacting in the slightest to the name that she has just been called. 

“It’s nice to meet you.” Natasha says, her lips twitch up in a smile as she talks. Wanda lets Natasha hold her hand for far too long, and she ignores Pietro when he starts talking to James instead of paying attention to Natasha, who hasn’t even said anything to Pietro. Natasha’s hair is beautiful and shiny, her eyes big and green, her voice low and soothing. 

“You’ll like it here,” she is saying. “ And even if you don’t like it, it’s only four weeks, and then you can go back to wherever you came from and have nothing to do with us ever again.” Wanda doesn’t want that to happen, if only to make sure she’ll be able to hear Natasha’s beautiful voice for at least another year. 

Natasha goes quiet. Wanda waits a moment for her to restart her speaking, but Natasha doesn’t. 

“Oh, it’s my turn to say something?” Wanda’s face begins to heat up, and Natasha laughs. “Tell me what happens if I do like it here.” 

Natasha’s laughter dies down, she looks over and winks at James, who is telling Pietro about the biking trip that second-year campers will get to do. 

“Machane Yehudi is a good place for kids like us.” Natasha explains. “The food is always kosher, we don’t have to deal with any goyim, and maccabiah is the most intense color war you will ever play.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Natasha grins, something feral shines through her eyes. “It’s the best.” 

The director of Bet Camp, the part where the Mizrahi lived, was Maria Hill. She’s a short-tempered, intimidating woman at first sight, but Natasha and James assure them that she is a reasonable director, and she is a lot of fun to get to know. 

“Tony sent her a dog for Christmas,” James says as they’re walking out of the mess hall. 

“She named it Ant-Man,” Natasha adds, slinging her arms over the shoulders of James and Wanda. Pietro is on James’ other side. 

“He sent her a dog?” Wanda doesn’t quite understand the relationships in this summer camp. 

“This is Tony Stark we’re talking about?” Pietro clarifies. James and Natasha laugh. 

“You two have a lot to learn,” James says. 

“I don’t understand why he sent Director Hill a dog for Christmas.” Wanda reiterates. “They’re both Jewish!” 

“I think that’s the joke.” Pietro stage-whispers to her. 

Wanda’s face warms up again. She looks bashfully at Natasha, who assures her that it’s fine, and she didn’t even get the joke at first anyway. James whispers something to Natasha. He says it in English. The words are so quick and quiet that Wanda doesn’t catch it, but Natasha’s expression hardens and she punches James in the abdomen. 

Wanda’s eyes widen, Pietro lets out an amazed “Holy shit,” and James doubles over, groaning. Natasha stalks ahead of them, flip-flopped feet clapping almost gracefully in accompaniment with James’ grousing. Wanda stops and bends over him. It’s difficult to hide her smile when he looks up at her. 

“Are you alright?” 

James doesn’t answer for a few seconds, grasping his side with his good arm. It almost looks like he’s not going to answer her at all when he starts laughing. Pietro catches her eye and shrugs. 

James finally straightens up, and grins at the twins. “Remember when I basically said that Steve was my muscle?” Pietro nods slowly, they are both unsure of what has just happened. 

“Well,” James continues. “Natasha is like ninety-eight percent of that muscle. Steve just likes to feel strong.” 

Wanda glances mournfully at the curve of the path to Aleph Camp, behind which Natasha has disappeared. James doesn’t seem too worried about it. Pietro laughs again. 

“We are the same way,” he tells James, who instinctively smiles back at him. “I am the muscle, and Wanda is my brain.” 

The sentence draws a laugh out of the groaning boy. Wanda grins with them. 

"Come on," James says, starting a pace to the other end of camp. "We're gonna miss Tony's opening ceremony." 

So they go.

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
> wow so I realized that in my rush to get this done in time I did absolutely nothing with it and nothing happens in the first chapter...whoops...anyway life is real busy right now but I will do my best to get more written As Soon As Possible so hold on to your hats there may be an update within the next month


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